The geology of Oregon has become a jigsaw puzzle of moving parts set on a foundation of changing conditions as the crust and mantle undergo successively different manners of deformation through time. As more megahypotheses arise from increasingly sophisticated views of plate tectonics and from more detailed analyses of synoptic...
The plate tectonic history of Oregon is but one piece of a worldwide jigsaw puzzle encompassing much of geologic time. With the splitting of Pangaea in Mesozoic times, Oregon has occupied the leading edge of the North American Plate as it has impinged upon the ancestral oceanic East Pacific Plate....
Plate boundaries are commonly regions of complex, diffuse deformation with
the motion across the boundary accommodated by numerous structural systems, rather
than being narrow, discrete zones of deformation. One such boundary occurs where
the North American plate makes contact with Juan de Fuca, Gorda, and Pacific plates
along the west...